This invention concerns computers, particularly the file management aspects of computer operating systems.
Personal computers allow users to do an almost unlimited number of tasks. Examples of typical tasks include drafting term papers, resumes, and letters, organizing recipes and addresses, tracking personal checking accounts and stock portfolios, communicating via electronic mail with other computer users, generating blueprints for home improvements, and even making electronic photo albums. To accomplish these and other tasks, the typical computer system includes application programsxe2x80x94specific sets of instructionsxe2x80x94that work with other components of the computer system to provide specific functions, such as word processing. Application programs are often called software to distinguish from the physical equipment, or hardware, of the computer system.
More particularly, the typical computer includes a central processing unit, a memory, a set of user-interface devices, and a display. The processing unit generally performs the computations and other data manipulations for performing, or executing, the instructions of application programs. The memory, which may take a variety forms such as a memory chip or a floppy disk, stores the application programs as well as data generated using the programs. User-interface devices, such as the keyboard and mouse, allow the user to input information into the application programs. For example, a user may input words or commands into the application program by typing on a keyboard, or select options from menus using a mouse or other pointing device. The display, sometimes called a monitor, not only provides a visible representation of application program operations, but also cooperates with the keyboard and mouse to provide a graphical user interface for intuitively interacting with and controlling application programs.
The typical computer system also includes an operating systemxe2x80x94a special kind of software that coordinates or facilitates execution of application programs. Application programs logically combine functions or services of the operating system with those of the central processor to achieve more complex functions, such as word processing. Examples of typical operating-system functions include transferring data between the central processing unit and the memory, initial processing of inputs from the keyboard and mouse, managing the storage and retrieval of files in memory, and displaying graphical-user-interface menus and dialog windows. Operating-system functions relating to file storage and retrieval are generally said to constitute a file, or document, management system. In one sense, the file management system is the heart of the computer system, since a great majority of the tasks that users use computers for involve creating, storing, and retrieving documents of various types from memory. (The terms file and document are used interchangeably throughout this patent to broadly encompass any form of electronically stored information.)
The file management system usually organizes the memory of the computer system as a file cabinet comprising a number of folders, with each folder comprising one or more documents. Each application program typically has its own folder which stores the application program itself and the documents created using the application program. The file management system includes features which allow users to define their own folders and to logically group documents according to subject matter, date-of-creation, indeed any criteria they choose. However, because using these features requires extra effort and attention, a great many users allow the application programs to store their documents in the folders containing the applications used to create them. For example, many users allow the word processing application to store their documents in the word processing folder, the photograph-editing application to store its documents in the photo-editing folder, and so forth.
This approach of allowing separate application programs to store documents in their own folders ultimately scatters the users documents across numerous folders. Many of these folders have abbreviated and hard-to-remember names which at times make it difficult for users, who forget which application programs were used to create which documents, to find specific documents without considerable frustration and effort.
One partial solution to this problem entailed programming a family of four application programs, to store, or save, their documents to a common folder, unless users specified otherwise. In other words, the suite of four application programs were programmed to use a common default folder, instead of the four different folders containing the application programs. A commercial example of this approach is the Office 95 (tm) family of business software from Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. This software family included application programs for word processing, spread sheeting, desktop publishing, and information management, all of which were programmed to save documents by default, that is, unless otherwise instructed, to a folder named My Documents.
However, this approach to default document storage applied only to application programs in the software family, not to the many other application programs that a typical computer system includes. Moreover, it did nothing to provide users with more convenient, straightforward access to the default folder, which can be difficult to find among a large number of folders. Accordingly, there is a need not only for a more general approach to default document storage, but also for more convenient ways of accessing the default folder.
To address these and other problems, the inventors devised an operating system which, rather than relying on application programs to set a common folder for default document storage, provides a common default folder to all application programs using the operating system. Moreover, for convenient access to the common default folder, some forms of the operating system include a graphical user interface which provides one-button access to the default folder at the highest level of the interface, eliminating the need for users to search through a hierarchical list of folders for the default folder. Additionally, other versions of the operating system includes a service that not only provide a list of most-recently-used documents but also one-button access to the common default folder. And still other versions of the operating system include a document sending feature that allows users to send any document, for example, an electronic mail message, to the default folder, and a document finding feature that allows users to focus computerized, document-searching efforts on the default document directory to save time.
The present invention encompasses systems, operating systems, computers, methods, and computer-readable media of varying scope. In addition to the aspects and advantages of the present invention described in this summary, further aspects and advantages of the invention will become apparent in view of the drawings and detailed description that follows.